Fringe visibility and distinguishability in two-path interferometer with an asymmetric beam splitter

Abstract

We study the fringe visibility and the distinguishability of a general Mach-Zehnder interferometer with an asymmetric beam splitter. Both the fringe visibility V and the distinguishability D are affected by the input state of the particle characterized by the Bloch vector S=(Sx,Sy,Sz) and the second asymmetric beam splitter characterized by paramter /beta. For the total system is initially in a pure state, it is found that the fringe visibility reaches the upper bound and the distinguishability reaches the lower bound when cos(/beta) = -Sx. The fringe visibility obtain the maximum only if Sx = 0 and /beta = /pi/2 when the input particle is initially in a mixed state. The complementary relationship V2 + D2 <= 1 is proved in a general Mach-Zehnder interferometer with an asymmetric beam splitter, and the conditions for the equality are also presented.